Butt, John

Butt, John, English organist, harpsichordist, clavi-chordist, conductor, and musicologist; b. Solihull, Nov. 11, 1960. He learned to play the organ in his youth and began giving recitals when he was 13. He was educated at the Univ. of Cambridge (B.A. in music, 1982; M.Phil, in musicology, 1984; M.A., 1986; Ph.D. in musicology, 1987, with the diss. The Significance and Incidence of Articulation Marks in the Primary Sources of J.S. Bach; basically rewritten and publ, as Bach Interpretation, Cambridge, 1990). In 1986-87 he lectured at the Univ. of Aberdeen, and then was a research fellow at Magdalene Coll., Cambridge (1987–89). In 1989 he made his first appearances as an organ recitalist in the U.S. in Berkeley and San Francisco. He was an asst. prof. (1989–92) and assoc. prof. (1992–97) at the Univ. of Calif, at Berkeley, where he also served as univ. organist (1989–97) and director of its chamber chorus (1991–97). In 1995 he made his N.Y. recital debut as an organist. From 1995 to 1997 he was director of the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale. In 1997 he became a lecturer at the Univ. of Cambridge, and founder-director of its mixed choir, the King’s Voices. As a performing musician, his repertoire includes works by Bach, Telemann, Purcell, Frescobaldi, Pachelbel, Kuhnau et al. He has contributed articles and reviews to scholarly journals, and also served as consultant ed. and contributor to the Oxford Companion to Bach (Oxford, 1999). He publ. Bach: Mass in B Minor (Cambridge, 1991), Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge, 1994), and the Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge, 1997).

—Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire